First Bake of 2012 - Mochi Buns / Brazilian Cheese Buns / Pao De Queijo

Mochi Buns / Brazilian Cheese Buns / Pao De Queijo

Teh: Whatever you call them, Mochi Buns / Brazilian Cheese Buns / Pao De Queijo, these chewy cheesy buns are quite addictive especially when they just come out of the oven! Half way through the making of these buns, there will be a few thoughts going through your mind. In no particular order, here are the thoughts:

1) Are you sure this is right?
2) The dough feels so wrong!
3) Why does the dough keep sticking to the whisk?!

Whenever one of these thoughts appear in your mind, answer it with this - "Just do it!"

Now you are all set to try this recipe! Enjoy!


Mochi Buns / Brazilian Cheese Buns / Pao De Queijo 
1 cup whole milk (240ml)
4 tablespoons butter, melted (60g)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (60ml)
200g tapioca flour
3 eggs, slightly beaten
4 slices of cheddar cheese
1.5 tsp Salt

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Mix milk, salt, vegetable oil and butter in a pot, and bring to a boil.

2. Remove from heat when it almost boils. Stir tapioca flour into the milk and butter mixture.

3. Break the cheese into small pieces and add it to the mixture. Use an electric whisk to roughly blend in the cheese.

4. Add the beaten eggs slowly while whisking the mixture.

5. The mixture will become very elastic and hard to mix. Stop periodically and remove the dough from the whisk before continuing (if needed) until all eggs have been added.

6. Shape the dough into small balls with floured hands. You can use tapioca flour. (remember to grease the baking tray first)

7. Bake rolls for 20 to 25 minutes, until they are puffed up and are golden. They look and behave a little like cream puffs.

8. Serve warm.

A small note - I realised if you bake the buns to be browner, the cheese taste is more distinct. But try not to burn them ;) 

There are other flavors sold in bakeries. E.g. Chocolate or black sesame seeds. I think these can be done the way as the cheese flavour, except chocolate powder should be added to the milk and black sesame seeds added to the flour. I have not tried those out though. Good luck!

Fruit Tart

I haven't been cooking or baking much since i got myself involved with the menu designing project. Now that the menu is kind of done, I was in the mood to bake something! Just the other day while lunching at Vivo, I came across Fruits Paradise and saw their beautiful fruit tarts. They were $70 to $80 each!! OMG. Of course the ones i made didn't turn out as beautiful as their's but there were plenty of TLC in mine.

Without further ado, here's the recipe!

Tart Dough (enough for 2 x 7 inch mould AND 22 mini tarts)

370g unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (90ml) milk, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 ½ cups (500g) all-purpose flour

(The above is the actual recipe taken from somewhere i can't remember. But i added 1 whole egg and it was fine.)

Before 

1. Cream the butter on low speed until it turns white-ish. Takes less than 5 minutes.

After

2. At this stage, add all the other ingredients except flour. Mix for 1 minute.

After mixing in all the flour

 3. Add in the flour in 4 portions. Whisk slight after each addition until flour is more or less incorporated. It doesn't have to be incorporated completely. Over whisking the dough may result in tough dough! Don't be obsessed!

After using hand to gather the dough

4. Use your hand to gently gather the dough into a ball. Be sure to check the bottle of the bowl. There may be some butter that didn't get mixed together. Just scrap everything together.

Now you will be wondering how the hell you are going to use this sticky and wet dough for the pie mould! Read on!

5. Separate the dough into 2 bags. Keep in the fridge. If you want to work on the dough soon, keep in the freezer for 30 minutes. If you only want to work in it the next day, the chiller is fine. The purpose of putting the dough into the fridge is so that it will harden and be easier to handle.

You can freeze the dough for up to 2 weeks. Just thaw it to use.

Rolled out

 6. After chilling the dough, its time to roll it out. How do you tell if the dough is ready? It just has to be harder than before and easy to manage.

Roll out the dough to your desired thickness. I think 0.5 to 1cm is ok. Please flour your workstation and rolling pin generously.

I have to warn you about this dough. Because of the high butter content in it, the dough may break easily, especially if its not cold enough or it got warm. But not to worry. If any dough breaks, it's willing to be patched back as well.

 7. Sorry i missed out 1 pic intended to show you how to place the dough on the mould. It was too blur. Here's what you do. Grease the mould. Gently (yes everything you do must be gently cos' the dough breaks easily) roll the dough onto the rolling pin. Quickly use the rolling pin to unroll the dough onto the mould. Am i making sense? I hope so. Try searching youtube for help!
If you look at the pic, you can see there are some patch jobs. Yes my dough broke and i patched it. No issue!

After baking

 8. Next, use a fork to prick holes in the dough. This will prevent   the dough from raising too much while baking. Some recipes ask you to weight the dough down with beans or rice but i feel it is not necessary. Put the dough back into the freezer for 10 mins. Take this chance to heat up your oven to 180 degrees celsius. Baking the dough for 20-25 minutes till golden brown.

This picture is how my tart (yes, before baking i call it a dough, after baking it comes a tart!) looks like after baking.






Ok. So after everything, its time for assembling. I used the pastry cream from the cream puff recipe to fill up the tart. Here is the link - Pastry Cream. Or you can use whipped cream. It's up to you. I made some mini tarts as well. It's up to you which type of fruits you like. Just add it to the tart. Hope you'll try this recipe.

Mini tarts

Lynn's Tart

Blueberries & Grapes Tart

My precious Cream Puffs!

This recipe is not by request but I felt that I want to help my friend when he mentioned he has éclairs craving. Hope he tries this recipe! You know who you are!

Cream Puffs - Final Product

Cream Puffs (Makes 20 mini cream puffs)

Choux Pastry:

70g all purpose flour

60g salted butter

120 ml water

2 eggs

Some salt (optional)

Pastry Cream:

2 eggs

40g of sugar

25g all purpose flour

15g corn flour

400ml milk

1tsp vanilla essence

Choux Pastry: 1. Sift the flour and salt together. Salt is optional. Some people like their pastry to be a little salty. 2.  Boil the water in a small pot. Throw in the butter to melt it. 3. When the butter is all melted and mixed with the water, on low heat, add in the sifted flour all at once. 4.  Stir the mixture quickly until it all comes together as a dough and leaves the sides of the pot. (refer to picture) It only takes a minute or slightly more. Cream Puffs - Water, Butter and Flour 5.  Turn off the fire. Let the dough cool slightly. 6.  Beat the 2 eggs. 7. Transfer the dough (doesn’t matter if it is still hot) to a mixing bowl. (I used my mixing bowl to boil the water. Hence, I didn’t need to wash extra things!) 8.  Use the cake mixer (low speed) on the dough for 20-30 seceonds. This will help disperse some heat. But don’t mix for too long as the steam (moisture) is crucial in the rising of the dough. 9.   Add in the beaten eggs bit by bit with the mixer on high. 10. When all the egg has been mixed in, the dough should look sticky. In the process of mixing the eggs half way, you may feel the dough looks ‘wrong’. But it’s ok. Carry on. It will turn out right after mixing in all the eggs. (refer to picture for an ideal of the desired sticky texture.) Cream Puffs - with eggs added 11. Now will be a good time to pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees celcius. 12.  Scope the dough into a piping bag (or I used those transparent plastic bag and cut a small hole at the corner to pipe the dough out) and pipe the dough on the baking tray. You can grease the tray, or use greased baking paper. For mini puffs, pipe a small dough around the size of a 50 cents coin. These dough will expand quite a lot. I have pictures to prove! Cream Puffs - before baking 13. Bake for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180 degrees for another 15 mins. The little doughs should turn golden brown and very light. It is hollow inside if you do it correctly. Cream Puffs - Out from oven Pastry Cream 1.  Heat up the milk with vanilla essence till hot. 2.  Beat the eggs with sugar, plain flour and corn flour. 3.  Add the hot milk to the eggs mixture slowly and use a normal hand whisk to mix it constantly. 4.  When all the milk has been added, place the eggs and milk mixture back on the stove on low heat. Continue to stir with the hand whisk. (the whisk helps to prevent lumps from forming) 5.  Slowly, the mixture will start to thicken. Keep stirring! It will get burnt easily. 6.  You can stop when the mixture looks like cream texture. If you are worried it is not thick enough, the good news is it will continue to thicken while its cooling. Hence, switch off the heat before you get too thick a cream texture. 7.   Use a cling wrap to cover the cream immediately to prevent a layer of ‘skin’ from forming at the top. I literally put the wrap on the cream. It works like a charm. Assemble! 1.  Use anything (a small scissors, toothpick, back of a teaspoon) to make a small hole at the side of each puff. Pipe the cooled cream into it. Voila! Cream puffs! Side notes: 1.  It may be wise to make the pastry cream before hand and let it chill in the fridge. You can do it the night before if you like. 2.  When you pipe the puffs, you may end up with a sharp tip at the top of the puff. Wet your finger with some water and flatten the tip. The water will prevent the dough from sticking to your finger. 3.   Make sure the puffs are cooled before you pipe the pastry cream into it. 4.   While the puffs are ‘hard’ (a bit crispy!) when just out of the oven, it tends to soften after piping in the cream and leaving it overnight. I prefer the soft versions. But it doesn’t stop me from eating the ‘hard’ ones as well. 5.   If you want to make éclairs or you like some melted chocolate on the puffs, you know what to do. Heat up some milk or cream. Slowly add the milk/cream to small pieces of dark chocolate and stir. I do not have the exact measurement at the moment but I know you do not want the mixture to become too diluted. Hence, add the milk/cream slowly! Stir and gauge the thickness. It ought to be thicker than you think it should be. That’s the key. Dip the cream loaded puffs into the chocolate and let it cool. You can put it into the freezer to quicken the process. Based on my experience, the chocolate tends to melt very quick if you leave it back out in the open. 6.   Have fun!

Maybe next week we will do a food review ;)

Shared by Teh

Pineapple Tarts

I know it is strange to be making pineapple tarts at this time of the year but hey, it doesn’t make sense to turn down good stuff! This pineapple tart recipe has been tested countless times. Everyone loves it! I hope you will try it out when you are free. It’s very simple to make. One thing I have to admit is I didn’t make my own pineapple filling. I did try once but it was just too much work for too little filling. Go buy Bake King’s pineapple paste. They work wonderfully. I think it cost $5 (more or less) for 400 or 500g of paste. One packet is enough to make 80 tarts. Throw in some TLC while doing this and you’ll never buy pineapple tarts from elsewhere!

Pineapple Tart Dough

(makes 40-50 tarts)

- 250g butter (unsalted or salted doesn’t seem to make much a difference), softened

- 170g Nestle UHT cream

Pineapple Tarts

- 75g caster sugar

- 400g plain flour

- 30g corn flour

- 50g cream cheese (I used Kraft Philadelphia), softened

- 3 egg yolks

- 1 egg for glazing

1. Sift plain flour and corn flour together.

2. Whisk (on medium speed) the cream, butter, cream cheese and sugar together till you get a creamy mixture.

3. Add the 3 egg yolks into the mixture. Mix. (egg whites can be frozen for up to 2 weeks. You can make pavlova! Or just make egg white omelette.)

4. Add in the sifted flour all at once. Using low speed, whisk till it becomes a smooth dough. It will feel oily and you will be wondering if the dough looks right. If some flour escaped, use your hands to gently combine the escaped flour and the dough. The dough will still not look right to you. I guarantee that. But go on to the next step. It’ll turn out ok!

5. Chill the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes or more. This is the magic step that will make the dough look and feel right. Hence, do not omit this step! However, you will not want the dough sit too long in the fridge and become too hard. It will be difficult to shape it.

6. Now is a good time to roll the pineapple paste into small balls. Depending on how big or small you want your tart to be, the pineapple paste balls should be 1/4 smaller. (You will not want too little paste or too little dough in a tart. Balance and your preferences are important.)

7. Shape the chilled dough into small balls. You may want to work on individual small batches and keep the rest in the fridge in case the dough gets warm (it won’t look right again!). Best if you do it with your family. Everyone gets the chance to make pineapple tarts!

8. Flatten the round dough in your palm. Wrap pineapple paste ball with the flatten dough and shape as you like.

9. Glaze with the tart with the egg wash.

10. Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20 mins in a oven. (please preheat the oven while shaping your tarts)

11. The tarts are done when they are yellowish brown. Leave them to cool before storing in containers.

Side notes:

1. This is a closed tart recipe. If you want to make an open faced tart, you need to roll out the dough after it has been chilled then work with the cookie cutter. Roll till you acquired your desired thickness, cut it, place the rolled pineapple paste on it. Viola! Glaze only the dough and not the pineapple paste.

2. These tarts can keep quite a long time. According to a colleague (he bought a lot from me) they remained edible even after 3 weeks. While his other store bought tarts were mouldy a week after Chinese New Year, mine were mould-free even without preservatives. But I don’t think your tarts will last so long. They will probably be gone in a week ;)

3. Now you are wondering what to do with the left over pineapple paste. You can wrap and eat with bread. You can buy some frozen puff pastries and make Danish with pineapple paste filling. If you have other brilliant ways to use up the paste, please let me know!

- Shared by Teh